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says Amina Fazlullah , digital equity counsel for the nonprofit advocacy group Common Sense Media . “ Everyone ’ s feeling trepidation about what this model of learning will look like .”
Fazlullah and her team have been collecting stories from parents and teachers across the country about how a lack of access to technology has affected student learning . One elementary school teacher in Marysville , California , wrote , “ Education is supposed to be equal , but right now it is shouting in our faces how much it is not .” In St . Joseph , Missouri , high school students without internet access at home have traveled to fast-food restaurants to tap into Wi-Fi for class . In Montgomery , Alabama , children wait at home for their parents to return from work to jockey for use of a single device to complete their schoolwork . Meanwhile , the 15-year-old daughter of a single working mom in Los Angeles did homework on a smartphone because her family didn ’ t have money for a laptop or Wi-Fi . the Grid
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STUDENTS AND TEACHERS across the country returned to school this year with what can be only called a patchwork approach — attending school in person , all-remote learning , or a hybrid alternative , with some students at home and others at school . It ’ s uncharted territory for everyone — parents struggling to help their kids learn at home , teachers navigating learning platforms , and students adapting to this new reality . And those facing the biggest challenges : families without Wi-Fi , laptops , and PCs at home .
“ Students without high-quality connectivity and devices are facing an uphill battle in accessing educational resources and connecting with teachers ,”
These are just a few examples of how the pandemic is widening the already deep digital divide , exacerbating the glaring racial and income inequalities in education , nationwide and globally .
Shrinking the digital divide with technology Roughly
15 million to 16 million US students — nearly one-third of all US public school students and disproportionately Black , Native American , and Latinx — are without sufficient technology to learn remotely . While some do what they can with smartphones , it ’ s not enough to keep pace with their peers who have computers , leaving them
quickly falling behind — and
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